Central heating breakdown insurance

We’ve been ruminating on this question for the last year. The short answer (for us) is that peace of mind is not that important anymore. I used to work in insurance many years ago and followed the “worst case scenario” school of thought.
Once you get your head around it, it makes more financial sense to self fund.
Houses and cars exempted, of course.
We still have pet insurance but have now gone cheap and cheerful with only the most expensive bills needing to be financed by insurance ( our excess is fucking huge). We’ve shaved 80% off our monthly bill.

YMMV

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Local gas fitter companies offer this service ime. We are with one. We transfered over from another local operator. It’s less faceless than a nationwide corporate offering = more reliable. They always come within 24 hours. We have them out most years! Our current boiler is reliable, but the cheap switches by the boiler fail every 12 months or so. Costs no more than £18 a month. An annual service is included too.

For me half the problem is actually finding someone to turn up and do the work.

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Just service and listen to the advice , get a quote and then keep paying that into your boiler repair fund . Use local trade…oh and be patient

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I find hard to be patient when I have no heating or hot water.

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Not denigrating it, but this seems to be universal now - any trade of any kind, weeks, months, often, never…

Wood-burning stove and dry your marestail crop in the summer :+1:

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We’ve been with corgi for years £18 a month includes a yearly service and they kept our old glow worm piece of shit running way beyond the realms of the possible.
Eventually got given a new boiler when I was doing work for ideal and they kept that going. Another ideal in the new place and it’s been serviced and fettled by them as well with no issues.

As for pet insurance, we are with John Lewis and claimed a year or two ago for a malignant tumour on our cats foot. Touch and go if he’d have to have his leg off as the biopsy margin was so tight but it’s been a while now with no recurrence. Again JL stumped up the cash less the excess with no bother at all. Also claimed for one of fighty cats injuries that went septic. Emergency vet and everything again no issues with repayment.

Peace of mind is worth the slight extra we probably pay.

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Check with your energy provider they don’t do a combi deal. I got mines from Scottish Power for £3 a month as an add on to my dual fuel though I think it’s up to £8 now. I’ve had them out twice and they have been very good, they subcontract the work to City Group who were very efficient and knowledgeable. No servicing at that price but my boiler is over 20 years old and hasn’t been serviced in at least ten years so I don’t see the point in starting now. They don’t make them like that anymore.

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I wasn’t going to get involved in thsi thread, but fuck it. Here is my view - albeit a terminally jaded one - from inside the ‘industry’.

Boiler breakdown cover is worth it in a few instances, like Paul’s dad for example. Bare in mind that these companies… not all, but most…struggle for staff also, especially good quality seasoned engineers. British Gas used to be the exception to this due to their apprentice scheme.

I and every other self employed plumber constantly get contacted by agencies trying to recruit for these companies. I mean fucking daily it feels like. The standard of staff is very hit and miss.

Regarding the free servicing that they offer, take that with a pinch of salt. Again most, not all, will stick a flue gas analyser in and fuck off. I am sick to fuck of going to a boiler that has been ‘serviced’ and absolutely nowt has been done to it. They will also try their hardest to write off the boiler as they just don’t have enought time to properly fix it.

I’d stick £35 quid a month aside and if you can’t get a local engineer get the manufacturer out as most will offer a one-off breakdown fix. They will also offer preventative maintenance and have a competent engineer.

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I’m boring myself now to be honest, but here is an example from Monday.

Boiler has been installed and maintained by a company that shall remain nameless. They refused to fix it saying it was beyond repair.

It was pissing water from the return manifold. A known issue and quite common. The part is £170 plus vat and a few hours of spirited wrangling to get the hydraulic block out and the new manifold fitted.

What no one ever brought to anyone’s attention is the customer is on a water meter, and always has been, so a shock arrestor should have been fitted, which would have helped to prevent this. A shock arrestor is £20. They’ll take £50 quid a month for years for fuck all.

Forgotten what the point was. Oh yes… the boiler wasn’t a right off, they just can’t economically fix it.

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I’m glad you posted both replies. From your previous postings I knew that my gas service company weren’t doing the service properly. It works for us as those cheap switches I mention fail every 18 months and leave us in the cold. They come within 24 hours so we always get our monies worth.

Like you say, good gas fitters are hard to come by.

If you mean motorised zone valves then get Honeywell ones fitted and an electrician to make sure the wiring is up to snuff. You should get more than 18 months out of them. I know you were speaking anecdotally tho. :slight_smile:

Isn’t that exactly what a write off is? Something that could be repaired but is not economically viable to do so?

Sorry, I should have said the boiler didn’t need to be replaced.

…and… I don’t know one competant engineer who would suggest replacing that boiler for that fault. Especially as it had been installed incorrectly in the first place. With every chance of the new one being installed without one also.

Depends on what their “economical” parameters are.
Motor vehicle write offs are based on a cost to repair compared to it’s market value.

From what I’ve seen, boiler write offs is based more on staff opinion such as, “I can’t be bothered”, “Not within my skill set”, or some arbitrary figure unrelated to any actual value of appliance.

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Mate…

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Exactly fucking this. Coupled with the customer’s fear of being left without heating or hot water.

Fuckers.

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You can normally (better before inflation) buy a write off back, get it repaired and be in pocket.

Yeah, complete brian fart.